Health Care Consumers Association lead new consumer reference group to help with future health infrastructure including Calvary Public Hospital

The Health Care Consumers Association (HCCA) will lead the new consumer group, which will provide expert knowledge and advice to the government.

The group will play a significant role in the co-design of the new northside hospital, with all projects in collaboration with clinicians, carers and the wider community.

Minister for Health Rachel Stephen-Smith said this built on the success of the co-designed Critical Services Building, due for completion next year.

"We also want to build on the fantastic experience that we've had with the University of Canberra Hospital, with the Canberra Hospital expansion and the Centenary Hospital for Women and Children, bringing consumers to the table in a consistent way across all of our infrastructure projects," she said.

"And of course we're now going to invest more than a billion dollars in what will again be the largest in health infrastructure projects in self-government at the northside hospital, and consumer voices alongside those of clinicians will be vitally important in making sure that we get that major investment right."

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Ms Stephen-Smith said the next stage for the new hospital, with the new consumer group involved, comes after existing consultation with the community.

"The next stage is going to be a much more detailed design process and that's where having a specific consumer reference group that can really engage with that detail is vitally important," she said.

"So we need to both engage the community more broadly, but we also need to have a group of consumers who can sit down and engage with the detail in an ongoing way to support our infrastructure and to do that alongside the clinical engagement, which we are looking forward to having with the Calvary staff about what they need with the new design."

Advice provided by the group will include matters of design, accessibility, safety, and amenities, as they work with existing clinical, consumer and community groups in the process.

They will also oversee consumer engagement on health infrastructure.

Deputy direct of HCCA Kate Gorman said they were looking for a diverse group of people to be part of the health infrastructure community reference group.

"Over the years, we have had really strong input from people with disabilities, so there will be a number of disability consumer groups as part of it, but also we've involved multicultural community members and groups," she said.

"There's been both community organisation representatives and also individual people, bringing their own perspectives as well.

"Really, what we're after here is a broad range of community members who can each bring their different perspectives, too."

Advertisements for expressions of interest for the health infrastructure community reference group will occur in coming weeks, being implemented before the end of the year.

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